This startup is 6 months into an employment experiment — no perks, lower pay, and you're free after 2 years

Jolt CEO Roei Deutsch. Jolt "If we were to renew the employment deal today, what would it look like?" says Jolt CEO and cofounder Roei Deutsch.

Jolt is a fast-growing San Francisco startup that connects Silicon Valley pros with companies around the world for videoconferenced lectures. So if you're a Polish startup and could use an hour of expertise from a Google engineer or a Stanford professor, Jolt has the hookup.

From Deutsch's perspective, modern employment is kind of a raw deal, especially for the mythical millennial tech worker: When they look for jobs, young people aren't looking for lifetime careers, Deutsch says — they're looking for places where they can spend one or two years learning what they can before going on to the next thing. That's a big part of why even the top tech companies have such high turnover rates.

Deutsch says the opportunity to learn is a more powerful attractor for top talent than lavish startup perks like snack kitchens or yoga classes. For many, Deutsch says, the chance to grow personally and professionally is more valuable even than a fat paycheck.

So about six months ago, when Deutsch and his cofounders built the Jolt team, they sponsored studies of the habits and desires of Silicon Valley and New York City tech workers. What they came away with was "chapterships," a new concept of employment for a new kind of workforce.

The chaptership concept has helped Jolt grow to 14 (and soon, Deutsch says, 18) people. Now, having built a product team in Tel Aviv, Jolt is growing its Silicon Valley presence with the same methods, using the $2 million in venture capital it raised in July.

What are chapterships?

The name comes from the idea of helping you "better prepare for your next chapter," Deutsch said. He even wrote a free book about it.

This chaptership philosophy has two key tenets:

After two years, your job is done, no matter what. At that point, you can either leave the company with no hard feelings or find a new two-year "mission" at the company. "It doesn't mean I'm firing you," Deutsch said. "It means 'Let's find something new for you to do.'"

There are no Google-esque perks at Jolt, and Deutsch cops to the fact that he's paying employees below market rate. Instead, that money is reinvested into what he calls "employee success." You come in with a list of things that you want to learn, and Jolt invests "tremendous resources" and assigns you a manager to help you get there.

Jolt's infographic on what makes its approach special. Jolt

For example, Deutsch says, one of Jolt's engineers recently came in to discuss his personal learning goals.

After his two years at Jolt were up, the engineer told Deutsch, he wanted to be the CEO of his own company, but he was concerned he wasn't confident enough. Rather than trying to persuade him to stay, Deutsch made it part of his development plan.

"We're probably the first startup to send an engineer to acting class," Deutsch said.

To Deutsch, it's a way more valuable investment than startup perks that he says are designed to "distract" employees from the fact that "they're stuck in a job that doesn't help them improve."

Experimental

This is still an experiment, Deutsch readily admits. As Jolt refines the concept, he says, some employees will have their stock options fully vested after two years as a push toward giving them "total freedom" when their two-year chaptership is up.

Nobody should be at Jolt if they don't want to be, he says. It's sort of similar to Google's famed ATAP secret labs, where researchers are given two-year employment contracts and shown the door at the end, which is meant to encourage fast innovation and prevent employees from staying on their laurels.